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ATIONUFTHH PATHiNT LAWS 


AMKK 


IlAX A(;RI(1 I/ITRK, AKIS. AND 1 M )L S IRl i:s. 




Ill-INi; TIIK 




ANNUAL ADDRESS 


NKW YORK SOCHlTY OF PRACTICAL ENiUM'K RIX(;, 




DEI.IVJ.RED Sl-.PTEMHEK 7, 1.S75, 


BY 


THE PRKSII)i;XT, J.XMHS A. WUITNK^ . 


PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 




\i)iiKi:ss : 212 Broadway, New York ("itv. 



^ 



THE 



RELATION OF THE PATENT LAWS 



AMERICAN ACRICUl/rURE, AR'I'S, AND INDUS'l'R] ICS, 



HKINC, TIIK 



ANNUAL ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



NEW YORK SOCIETY OF PRACTICAL ENGINEERING, 

DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 7, 1875, 

BY THE PRESIDENT, JAiMES K. WHITNEY. 




PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 

Address : 212 Broadway, New York City. 






*. 



(^ 



'IHE NEW YORK 



Society of Practical Engineering 



{Address: Xo. 212 BiO(xdway, h'ew York City.) 



PRESIDENT : 



JAMES A. WHITNEY. 



VICE-PRESIDENT 



SECRETARY 



P. H. VAN DER WEYDE. 



ADVISORY COMMITTEE 



GEORGE ED. HARDING, JOHN W. SUTTON. 

JAMES C., BAYLES, CHAS. B. BOYLE. 



HONORARY MEMBERS : 



FREDERICK A. P. BARNARD, WILLIAM J. McALPINF, 

JOHN ERICSSON, PETER COOPER, 

GEORGE B. McCLELLAN. 



THE NEW YORK SOCIETY 



PRACTICAL ENGINEERING 



, The third quarterly session for the year 1875 of the 
New York Society of Practical Engineering was 
held in the Cooper Union on the evenings of September 
7, 8, 9, and 10. At the first meeting of the series the 
Annual Address of The President, James A. Whitney, 
was delivered as follows : 

Gentlemen : 

As this is the initial meeting of the ninth year of our 
Society, it was at first intended that this annual address 
should be a retrospect of the progress of engineering since the 
date of our organization. But the period that has wrought 
so many changes in the various branches of our profession 
has brought to the surface new questions affecting us not 
only as engineers, mechanicians, and scientists, but as citizens 
interested, like all others, in the progress and development of 
the agriculture and industries of the country. While, there- 
fore, it is eminently proper that our proceedings should in 
the main relate to the various departments of the con- 
structive arts, it equally becomes us to give due attention to 
those matters of public policy by which, as the case may be, 
those arts are fostered or retarded. Among these are none 
of more intrinsic importance, or more forcibly urged upon 
thinkers, than the laws that relate to the grant of letters- 
patent for inventions. For myself, I believe them to have 
been the greatest of all agencies in producing the colossal 



results embraced in modern arts and applied science. But 
there are many earnest and honest men who, misunderstand- 
ing- the nature and effects of patents for useful improvements, 
are opposed to the system, and whose antagonism has of 
late been made manifest in unmistakable terms ; for example^ 
in a bill introduced in Congress the last session but one, 
which, if it had been passed, would have nullified the benefi- 
cent jurisprudence of two hundred and fifty years. And on 
the second day of June last, one of the great political parties 
of the country, in its convention for the State of Ohio, under 
the influence of the Granger movement, committed itself to 
the following plank of its platform : 

" We demand such a revision of the patent laws as will 
relieve industry from the oppression of monopolies." 

PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS ARE NOT MONOPOLIES. 

This resolution assumes at the outset that the patent laws 
have proved oppressive to industries. If this assumption 
were correct, there would remain but little to be said. But no 
arguments are adduced to sustain its correctness, no facts are 
brought forward to prove its truth ; on the contrary, every 
principle of ethics and all the teachings of the history of 
industries for the past two centuries and a half go to show 
its futility. What is an oppressive monopoly, or, as the old 
British law-writers expressed it, an odious monopoly ? It is 
the taking away from the public of something that the public 
before enjoyed, but from which it has been unjustly debarred. 
When the King of England granted to certain persons the 
exclusive privilege to trade in salt, that was an odious 
monopoly, because it was a right that had previously 
belonged to the people at large, and of which they had been 
arbitrarily deprived. When a powerful corporation, by 
crooked devices, obtains a large share of the public domain, 
that may be an odious monopoly, for the lands which had 
once belonged to the people are taken from them without 
due recompense. But when a person, instead of appropriat- 
ing what was previously known or used, creates new pro- 
perty, then that newly-created property should, by common 



consent, belong to him. Now, the law expressly tbrbids the 
issue of a patent, except to some one who has actually 
and truly created a new and useful improvement in some art 
or manufacture. It simply protects the inventor for a limited 
time in the possession of what, but for him, would have had 
no existence. The principle is the same as that which pro- 
tects all property, except that the inventor has less protection 
than any other person who creates it. The farmer levels the 
forest or breaks the prairie sod, and this originates wealth, 
and all the profits of that wealth are " his, his heirs, and 
assigns for ever." The inventor provides new and improved 
inventions whereby the farmer can hew down the woodland 
or invert the furrow with one-tenth the labor that it required 
before, and these inventions are wealth originated by the 
inventor ; but the law protects him and his legal representa- 
tives in the profits of that wealth for a period of, at most, 
seventeen 3?ears. It is impossible to trace in this a single 
element of an odious monopolv, for the inventor takes no- 
thing from the public that it could have had without him. 
But by a vicious use of this term, mistaken leaders have suc- 
ceeded in confusing the idea of patent laws with that of 
hurtful monopolies, and this, too, in the minds of a class that, 
more than any other, have been, as we shall see, directly 
benefited by the patent system. When such ideas are held by 
a portion of the communitv so intelligent, so energetic, and 
so powerful as the Western Grangers, it is time that the 
ethics and practical effects of patent laws were brought 
sharp and clear into the daylight of vigorous discussion, in 
order that they may be judged upon their merits. If the 
law of patents has wronged any class of men ; if it has 
retarded in an}- way any industry of our people ; if it has pre- 
vented the full development of the resources of any portion 
of our country ; if it places the poor at the mercy of the rich ; 
if it robs the farmer to heap the coffers of the manufacturer ; 
if it is contrary to any principle of right, or equity, or 
justice, then let the patent laws sink " deeper than ever plum- 
met sounded." But if, as I believe and contend, every grade 
of society and all classes of men have been benefited by 



t 

patent laws ; if the progress of every industry has been accel- 
erated by them ; if our national resources have yielded a 
hundred or a thousand fold more than would have been 
possible without them ; if they provide to-day the readiest 
means whereby a poor man may rise to affluence and posi- 
tion ; if they add to the wealth of the agriculturist even more 
than to that of the manufacturer ; if they prove to be based 
upon those eternal principles of justice and equity which form 
the foundation of all fair dealing, then let us exalt the patent 
laws as the great agency of industrial advancement. Let us 
correct their defects, when such appear, with careful and 
skilful hands, and then, more than ever before, make them an 
integral and permanent part of our national jurisprudence 
and pubUc poKcy. 

THE PATENT LAWS WERE THE OUTGROWTH OF LIBERTY. 

We must not forget that the patent laws are inwoven 
v^/ith the history of Anglo-Saxon freedom. They first 
took the form of positive enactments in the famous sta- 
tute against harmful monopolies, by which English free- 
men struck down for ever the arbitrary power of the 
British kings ; and the most bitter enemies of patents in Eng- 
land to this day are the pseudo-aristocrats, of which Sir Wil- 
liam Armstrong is the type. In this country the first pa- 
tents were granted by the colonies to encourage the manu- 
facture of iron, the building of grist-mills, the success of 
steam navigation, and other useful enterprises needed by the 
people. And so deeply impressed with their utility were 
the founders of the Republic that, fresh from the hot contest 
with kingly prerogative, they incorporated in the Constitu- 
tion that proviso upon which our patent laws are based. A 
few )^ears later, when France threw off the feudal tyranny of 
centuries, it adopted a patent system as among the first- 
fruits of its liberty ; and in these later days one of the fore- 
most acts of re-united Italy was the establishment of a patent 
law protecting inventors by a single grant, in all the pro- 
vinces, from the Alps, on the borders of Lombardy, to the 
shoals of the Adriatic. A system that met with such favor 



from statesmen so strongly imbued with the spirit of free- 
dom can hardly be in itself oppressive. A system that 
has stood unchanged, save in the refinements of its prac- 
tice, dui-ing- more than two hundred and fifty years, and 
from the single country of Great Britain has been incorpo- 
rated in the statute law of every civilized land, must have 
some merit in it — enough, at least, to render it worthy of the 
most careful study and examination before any attempt, 
direct or indirect, to impair or destroy it. Let us, then, pro- 
ceed to consider the patent law — thoroughly and dispassion 
ately — first as to its ethical justice and propriety, then as to 
its results as an element of national policy, and, finally, as to 
its effect upon the agricultural interests of the United 
States. 

THE* EQUITY OF GRANTING' PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS. 

The entire sj-stem of protecting new inventions by letters- 
patent is declared by the courts to rest upon the same prin- 
ciples as a contract. The public, acting through its repre- 
sentative, the Government, says to the inventor, " give us new 
and useful improvements in the useful arts, and we will pa}-- 
you for them ; not in cash down — for we cannot tell the value 
of an invention until it has been long and thoroughly tried — 
but b}^ giving you or your legal representative, for a certain 
specified time, an exclusive chance to make money out of it, 
provided your invention is really a good one." This, in sim- 
ple English, is the sum and substance of the patent law. 
Acting on this promise, the inventor proceeds to devise 
some means of saving time or labor in some industrial pur- 
suit, or of adding to the comforts or enjoyments of life, and, 
having done this, secures a patent for it. If the improve- 
ment is of such utility that the public wishes to use it, the in- 
ventor will have a market for it, and will make a profit until 
his patent expires and the public comes into full and entire 
possession ; if, however, the invention is not truly an im- 
provement, or if the inventor does not provide for its sale or 
introduction, the public will not buy, and the patentee will 
make nothing. This is the rule, with so few and trifling 



10 



exceptions that they call foV no serious consideration. 
Could any system be more plainly founded on substantial 
justice, both to the inventor who creates and sells, and the 
public that buys and uses? Could any be better adapted for 
bringing into existence a constant supply of new and useful 
: improvements without expense or risk of loss to the public ? 
The inventor simply sells to the world what it never pos- 
sessed before, and the public pays him for it by permitting 
him to make what he can from it, without let or hindrance,, 
during a certain specified time. The world will not buy 
unless it can find its own profit in the buying, and thus the 
patentee cannot profit unless the world be the gainer also. 

IF THE PATENTEE DOES NOT ACT IN GOOD FAITH WITH 
THE PUBLIC, HIS PATENT IS VOID. 

But, I may hear it objected, a patentee may have a 
patent on what does not really belong to him. This does 
happen sometimes. But mark how the law steps in to con- 
found the wrongdoer. If an invention has been made 
known in any printed publication, or has been in public use 
in this country, before the date of its invention by the 
patentee ; or if the inventor has allowed it to go into public 
use for more than two years before his application for a 
patent ; or if he has otherwise abandoned it to the public ; or 
if it appear that the alleged is not the actual inventor, then 
the patent, even if it has been secured by all the formalities 
of the Patent Office, will fall to the ground — it will not 
be worth the ink it is printed with. But this is not all:, 
if the patentee does not describe his improvement so that it 
can be made and put in use or operation from his specifica- 
tion and drawings alone ; or if he does not clearly distinguish 
his improvement from what was previously known ; or if he 
claims more than- he has really invented ; or if his invention 
does not operate successfully, his patent is so much waste 
paper. 

But neither is this all: if the inventor, although he has 
made a broad invention, claims only a portion of it in his 
patent, the law hol^hiin to his narrow claim, and he cannot 



11 



go beyond it so long as his patent remains in that condition. 
So, in Hke manner, if he fails in any of the minute re^-ulations 
prescribed in making his application, the law compels him to 
rectify the error before it will give him standing and protec- 
tion. It is only the inventor that has brought a truly new 
and useful improvement to the full and complete knowledge 
of the public, and this according to the forms of law, who 
can hold the reward or remuneration of a patent. And the 
man who does this is as much entitled to his reward as is 
any man who by industry, talent, or skill creates wealth 
which is added to the available resources of the world. 1 
know that I am speaking at some length on elementary prin- 
ciples. But elementary principles are the all-important 
ones. If it is right and proper, in point of ethics and 
morality, that inventors should receive patents, it is the 
strongest of all evidence in favor of the law. 

SPENCER AND MILL ON PATENTS. 

Even at the risk of taking more time than I intended, 1 
may be permitted to quote from eminent political economists 
on this branch of the subject in hand. Says Herbert Spen- 
cer, in his Social Statics : " They fall into a serious error 
who suppose that the exclusive right assumed by a discoverer 
is something taken from the public. He who in any way in- 
creases the powers of production is seen by all, save an insane 
Luddite, to be a general benefactor, who o^i^cs rather than 
takes. The successful inventor makes a further conquest over 
nature. By him the laws of matter are rendered more sub_ 
servient to the wants of mankind. He who economizes labor 
helps to emancipate men from the slavery to the needs of the 
body ; harnesses a new powder to the car of human happiness. 
He cannot, if he would, prevent society from participating 
largely in his good fortune. Before he can realize any bene- 
fit from his new process or apparatus, he must first confer a 
benefit on his fellow-men — must either offer them a better 
article at the price usually charged, or the same article at a 
less price. If he fails to do this, his iiu-ention is a dead letter ; 
if he does it, he makes society a partner in the new mine 



12 



of wealth he has opened. For all the exertion he has had in 
subjugating a previously unknown region of nature, he 
simply asks an extra proportion of the fruits. The rest of 
mankind unavoidably comes in for the main advantage ; in a 
short time will have the whole. Meanwhile, the}- cannot, 
without injustice, disregard his claims." 

And John Stuart Mill, in language equally energetic, en- 
forces the same truth. He says : " The condemnation of 
monopolies ought not to extend to the patents by which 
the originator of an improved process is allowed to enjoy 
for a limited period the exclusive privilege of using his 
own improvement. This is not making the commodity dear 
for his benefit, but merely postponing a part of the in- 
creased cheapness which the public owes to the inventor, 
in order to compensate and reward him for the service. 
That he ought to be both compensated and rewarded for 
it will not be denied; and also that, if all were at once. al- 
lowed to avail themselves of his ingenuity, without having 
shared the labors or expense which he had to incur in 
bringing his idea into practical shape, either such expenses 
and labors would be undergone by nobody except very 
opulent and ver}^ public-spirited persons, or the state must 
put a value on the service rendered by an inventor, and 
make him a pecuniar}^ grant. This has been done in some 
instances, and may be done without inconvenience in cases 
of very conspicuous public benefit ; but, in general, an ex- 
clusive privilege of temporary duration is preferable, be- 
cause it leaves nothing to any one's discretion ; because the 
reward conferred by it depends upon the invention being 
found useful, and the greater the usefulness the greater the 
reward ; and because it is paid by the very persons to 
whom the service is rendered — the consumers of the com- 
modity. So decisive, indeed, are those considerations, that 
if the system of patents were abandoned for that of the 
rewards by the state, the best shape which these could 
assume would be a small temporary tax, imposed for the 
inventor's benefit on all persons making use of the inven- 
tion. To this, however, or to any other S3^stem which 



13 



would vest in the state the power ot" deciding whether an 
inventor should derive any pecuniary advantage from the 
public benefit which he confers, the objections are evi- 
dently stronger and more fundamental than the strongest 
that can possibly be urged against patents. And I have 
seen with real alarm several recent attempts, in quarters 
carrying some authority, to impugn the principle of patents 
altogether — attempts Avhich, if practically successful, would 
enthrone free stealing under the prostituted name of free 
trade, and make the men of brains still more than at present 
the needy retainers and dependents of the men of money- 
bags." 

I may, without myself trenching upon the domain of 
])olitics, remind our Western friends that both Spencer and 
Mill are- among the most ardent and aggressive advocates 
of free trade — an idea commonly believed to be dear to the 
Western farmer's heart. 

AMERICAN JURISTS (3N THE EQUITY OF PATENTS. 

Let me venture further quotations, this time from Amer- 
ican writers, which illustrate the same truths in different 
phrase. George Ticknor Curtis says : "A patent for a 
useful invention is not, under our law or the law of England, 
a grant of a monopoly in the sense of the old common law. 
It is the grant by the Government to the author of a new 
and useful invention of the exclusive right for a term of 
years of practising that invention. The consideration for 
which this grant is made by the public is the benefit to 
society resulting from the invention, which benefit flows 
trom the inventor to the public in two forms : firstly, by the 
immediate practice of the invention under the patent; and, 
secondly, by the practice of the invention, or the opportunitv 
to practice it, w^hich becomes the property of the public on 
the expiration of the patent. As the exercise of the inven- 
tion is wholly within the control of him who made it, who 
may confine his secret entirely within his own breast, it is 
apparent that his consent to make it known and available 
to others, and finally to surrender it to the public, becomes 



u 



a valuable consideration, for which, upon principles of na- 
tural justice, he is entitled to receive compensation in some 
form from the public to whom that consideration passes." 
And Chancellor Kent, the great commentator on constitu- 
tional law, speaks of patent cases as placed "peculiarly under 
the patronage and protection of Congress," and as " involving 
some of the dearest and most valuable rights which society 
acknowledges and the Constitution itself meant to favor." 

So much for the equity of patents to inventors and their 
legal representatives. The same reasoning that would de- 
stroy these rights would destroy the title-deeds of the far- 
mer's homestead, or his right to the exclusive ownership of 
the profits of his corn-field. The right is founded in natural 
justice, and, therefore, properly administered, can be pro- 
ductive only of good results. 

THE POLICY OR EXPEDIENCY OF PATENTS. 

I believe that what is right as a principle is always right 
as a practice, and the inherent justice of patent laws is in 
itself evidence of their propriety as an element of national 
policy. But it is often plausibly reasoned that a principle 
may be undeniable in the abstract, and yet inexpedient in 
its practical application ; and to meet any such averment 
that may be made concerning the matter in hand, let us pro- 
ceed to judge the patent laws from the lower standpoint of 
expediency, pure and simple — does it pay the public to re- 
ward inventors by means of patents, and, if so, why ? 

The question may be answered a priori by reference 
to one of the commonest and simplest attributes of human 
nature — that no man will willingly sow that another may 
reap. Ever}^ invention requires experiment to perfect it, 
outlay of time and money to prepare for its manufacture, 
business management to bring it properly into the market, 
and all before any returns can be received. The cost of all 
this is very great, and it is plain that no man in his right 
mind would incur it merely that others, as soon as he had 
overcome all difficulties, might appropriate his plans, profit 



15 



by his experience, and, iiaving been at no outlay theinselves, 
undersell him in the market in the very improvement he had 
made.' This is always the result when the inventor is kept 
from the protection of a patent. The inventor of the collo- 
dion process of photography by some means failed to secure 
a patent on his invention. It proved worth tens of thou- 
sands to the profession and hundreds of thousands to the 
world. The inventor died in beggary and was buried 
by charit}-. How many, with such examples before their 
eyes, would invent, or, inventing, perfect their improvements 
and give them to the world, if there were no patent laws to 
assure them of the prospect of remuneration, of a means 
of escaping the fate of the unfortunate inventor I have 
just mentioned. To quote again from Herbert Spencer : 
•" Just in so far as the benefits likely to accrue to the in- 
ventor are precarious will he be deterred from carrying out 
his plans. If," thinks he to himself, " others are to enjoy 
the fruits of these wearisome studies and these numberless 
experiments, why should I continue them ? " These words 
of the savant are true ; and if we can imagine the advantages 
that should accrue to the inventor not only made precarious, 
but absolutely destroyed, as the}^ would be by any curtail- 
ment of the scope or spirit of the patent laws, inventors 
would cease to invent, and the wheels of progress w^ould 
stand still. Switzerland has never had a patent law, and, 
notwithstanding her population of artisans, has not con- 
tributed one great invention to the world in two hundred 
years ; and were it not for improvements appropriated from 
lands where patent laws exist, her manufactures would be as 
stereotyped as the manual methods she employs. Holland 
repealed her patent law, and to this day her ditches and 
canals are dredged by hand, when our dredging machinery 
would do it in one-hundredth of the time. Prussia has a 
patent law that, in its narrowness and injustice, is a disgrace 
to the brave German name ; and her poor people, kept down 
to the old primitive modes of labor, harness their women 
with the oxen before the plough, and drive both together 
in the furrow. Such are some of the results when inventors 



16 



cease to invent, as cease they do, and cease they will, when 
deprived of the protection of patent laws. 

EDUCATIONAL EFFECTS OF PATENT LAWS. 

We must not forget, moreover, in estimating the advan- 
tages of a w^ise system of encouragement to originators 
of good improvements, that the faculty of invention, like that 
of music, or speech, or writing, like the memory or the will, 
and every other attribute of the human mind, is one that 
grows strong and apt and clear by exercise. An inventor's 
first attempts are commonly crude and imperfect, but by 
constant exercise the inventive faculty is developed, until he 
is capable of making, almost by intuition, improvements that 
would require months and years of labor from men not 
trained to this special branch of intellectual work. Hence 
there are hundreds and thousands of men in this country 
who, led on by the promise held out by the granting of 
patents, have educated themselves to invention, just as thou- 
sands of others have been educated to law or medicine. Do 
away with patent laws, and this education of men to the 
special work of improving arts and industries would cease, 
just as the education of men for the other professions I have 
mentioned would cease if law3^ers and doctors were not paid 
for their services ; just as modern agriculture would come to 
an end if the farmer should be taught that the law would 
refuse to protect his right to the product ol his labor and 
skill ; just as the literature of the age would dwindle down 
and become slavish and mean, if there were no copyright 
laws to protect authors in the sale of what they have written.. 

PATENTS CAUSE LWENTIONS TO BE TRIED, AND ADVER- 
TISED TO THE PUBLIC. 

But this is not all. After an invention has been com- 
pletely elabDrated in the brain of its originator ; after it has 
been fully explained in his specification and drawings ; and 
after his patent has been secured, the work of the inventor 
has only fairly begun. The improvement must be reduced 
to practice ; the best form and proportion^ the fittest 



17 



materials, and the most efificient manner of using- it must 
all be arrived at through actual construction and careful 
experiment. All this costs money, and very frequently a 
good deal of it, and inventors, at the outset at least, are often 
poor. Without a patent^ no money could be obtained from 
a new invention ; for after, the money was spent neither the 
inventor nor his assistant would have any more right to the 
improvement than any one else. But armed with his patent, 
the originator of a valuable improvement can common!}- 
find money and faith to assist him in perfecting the invention 
and demonstrating its utility to the public. Fulton would 
never have obtained the means to build the first successful 
steamboat, and thus to give to our country the glory of the 
great achievement, if his patent from the State of New York 
had not induced Chancellor Livingston to join in the enter- 
prise. Professor Morse could never have proved the utility- 
of his telegraph, if he had not had a patent to sell in shares 
to secure aid. The inventor of the most valuable portions 
of the Buckeye mower sold four-fi.fths of his right in order 
to secure the manufacture and sale of the machine on an 
extended scale ; and if we choose to go further back and out- 
side the examples afforded by our own country, James 
Watt would never have wrought the modern steam-engine 
into useful shape, if he had not had a patent to share with 
Boulton, who furnished the means to carr\^ on the manufac- 
ture and to make the merits of the invention known. Nine 
times out of ten where an improvement is introduced to 
public use, the capital for manufacturing, advertising, and 
selling it is obtained from parties other than the inventor 
upon the credit of the patent, and could not possibly be 
obtained in any other way. Hence we see that the patent 
laws afford the sole inducement for the production of 
valuable improvements in the useful arts ; that their direct 
result is to train a class of men especially for the work of 
makmg such improvements : and that they not only cause 
the improvements to be made, but provide, as a direct effect 
of their operation, the means by which they are practically 
developed, fitted for actual use, and introduced to the 



k 



notice and consideration of the public. Is it not manifest, 
then, that, taking human nature as we know it to be, and 
society organized as it is, expediency, apart from all 
higher considerations, dictates the grant of letters-patent for 
inventions, the encouragement and fostering of inventors by 
means of patent laws? But argument based upon proved 
facts is stronger even than the strongest of a priori reason- 
ing, and in the light of such facts let* us proceed to still 
further consider the subject. And I would here remark 
that the data I shall have occasion to give is taken from 
the official records of the Patent Office, most of it filed 
under oath, and, I believe, worthy of implicit credence. 

WHAT SOME PATENTS HAVE DONE FOR THE COMMUNITY AT 
LARGE. 

I do not know that I can select an art or industr}^ that 
has a more direct bearing upon the interests of all classes 
than the makmg of books and newspapers. And what has 
been the agency of patents in the development of this single 
art, identified with the intellectual, moral, and material wel- 
fare of the entire community ? Let us commence with the 
paper ; it was cheapened three cents a pound by the in- 
vention of Watt and Burgess in 1854, which consisted in boil- 
ing wood pulp in caustic alkali under pressure. As con- 
cerns the type, David Bruce, Jr., by machines patented in 
1843, reduced the cost full twenty-five per cent. ; he used a 
pump to force the molten type-metal mto the moulds to 
secure a sharp, clean letter on the type, and for the pro- 
duction of some varieties enabled steam-power to be used. 
Then, as to the printing, the press used by Franklin a little 
over a century ago gave but one hundred and thirty im- 
pressions an hour; but to the year 1847 successive patented 
improvements brought the capacity of newspaper-printing 
up to from twenty-five hundred to five thousand impressions 
per hour, the former of large, the latter of small, newspaper 
size. This was with the famous Napier double-cylinder 
press, an English invention. It was believed that with this 
machine the limit of speed was reached ; that if a newspaper's 



19 



circulation should exceed twenty thousand copies daily, all 
the type, presses, and appointments of the printing-office, as 
well as the force of compositors, pressmen, proof-readers, 
iind others, would have to be doubled. And all this time 
the public were calling for more newspapers, more books, 
more periodicals, more printed matter generally. It was at 
this juncture that Richard M. Hoe produced his great im- 
provements in printing machinery, now so well known. In 
the year 1861 one of the. New York journals printed a daily 
edition varying from 115,000 to 130,000 copies, and this was 
printed in four hours and a half. To have done the same 
work on a Napier press would have required five additional 
forms of type, each at a cost of one thousand dollars per 
week, making five thousand dollars per week, or 
$260,000 per annum, in type alone in this one news- 
paper office, to say nothing of the additional presses, room, 
and workmen that would have been required by the Napier 
presses. During the fourteen years immediately following 
the issue of the patent. Hoe sold forty of his great presses, 
and the gain to the public may be fairly estimated from the 
instance just given. After papers are printed they must be 
folded, and this was formerly done by hand. But about the 
year 1859 Cj^rus Chambers began a series of inventions for 
doing this by machinery, and in 1874 he had brought into use 
seventy-two of his patent " newsfolders " for folding news- 
papers. The cost of running these machines was two dollars 
a day each, and each accomplished the work of five men. 
The same work by hand cost $8 75 per day, being a saving 
of $6 75 per day for each machine, and these newspaper- 
folders alone, during the original terra of the patent, 
effected an econom}^ of labor amounting to upwards of one 
million one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars. But 
this, like the improvements in paper-making, in tjq^e-found- 
ing, and in printing, extended far beyond the production of 
newspapers. During the same period the paper-folders for 
duodecimo publications saved in labor more than $353,000 ; 
for octavos more than $139,000; for quartos more than 
$64,000 ; and for 32mos more than $522,000 — making from this 



20 



one patent alone, in less than fourteen years, a saving- 
of human toil and exertion amounting to more than 
two million two hundred and forty-three thousand dollars ; 
and this economy is to continue and increase for all time,, 
never to be diminished, but hkely to be increased by added 
improvements called forth by the encouragement of the 
patent laws. 

It now we turn to other patents relating to articles of 
general use, we find universally the same results. We can 
all recollect the time when feminine fashion, the reverse of 
what now obtains, called for immense quantities of tempered 
flat steel wire for crinolines. At the outset this wire cost 
three dollars a pound, because in tempering it was necessary 
to wind the flat wire in volute coils kept apart by interlaced 
iron wires, the coils being then carefully heated in a furnace,, 
and then plunged into a hardening bath. In August, 1858, 
Henry Waterman patented a plan of drawing the wire 
lengthwise from the fire through the hardening liquid, and 
by this means reduced the cost from three dollars a pound 
to three cents. As a result, the steel skirt, instead of being 
the fanciful luxury of the rich, was brought within the reach 
of the poorest. But, far more than this, the method has 
been found available, with the same economy, in the manufac- 
ture of tempered wire for the manifold purposes of manufac- 
tures and engineering. The copper-toed shoe is a well- 
known example of the economy brought about through 
patents. The saving to the country is estimated at from six 
millions to twelve millions of dollars annually. The super- 
intendent of a " Home for Little Wanderers " in Boston 
certified that it reduced the cost of shoes for the children in 
the establishment from one thousand dollars a year to four 
hundred. Patents for improvements relating to shoes for 
horses are equally instructive. To make horseshoes by 
hand costs an average of sixteen cents each, without count- 
ing the cost of the iron. So far back as 1835 Henry Burden 
began the invention of horseshoe machinery, and in 1857 
patented what is claimed to be the first really successful ap- 
paratus — although some of his previously-patented devices. 



21 



were included in it — and in 187 1 sold horseshoes, iron in- 
cluded, at four and one-half cents each, the shoes weighing, on 
an average, one pound each. The absolute benefit to the 
public cannot be calculated, but the gain to the Government 
^lone during the late war amounted to four millions of 
dollars. And the same motive that led Henry Burden to 
his long-continued and finally successful efforts — the reward 
offered by the patent law — is urging other inventors to still 
further improvements in the same line at the present time. 

THE PROFITS OF PATENTEES. 
For the profit from a patent on a real improvement, fair- 
ly introduced, is no myth. Watt and Burgess were misled by 
business associates in the management of their wood pulps 
for paper, but they received four thousand dollars for their 
British patent alone. David Bruce was a poor man, and, 
having no capital of his own, sold his two type-machine pa- 
tents outright for $1,890. Richard M. Hoe made two hun- 
dred and forty-eight thousand dollars, in fourteen years, 
from the manufacture of his great presses. I have not a full 
statement at hand of Cyrus Chambers's receipts from his 
paper-folding machinery, but he received from two of his 
■earlier and minor patents $6,200 profit. Waterman was 
more fortunate ; for his process of tempering wire brought 
him, over all expenses, $83,000 clear. Thomas Silverthorn 
the inventor of the copper-toed shoe, a poor mechanic, had 
to wait for his good fortune until his patent was extended, 
when a company bought it for $67,000. Henry Burden, 
during the term of his 1857 patent, made something more 
than $900,000 from $9,000,000 sales of horseshoes ; but he 
employed a ver}- large capital, and, in perfecting his inven- 
tions, worked sometimes eighteen hours a day for weeks to- 
gether. 

PROFITS OF PATENTEES COMPARED WITH PROFITS OF THE 
PUBLIC. 
The profits of good patents are, therefore, prizes tempt- 
ing enough to urge inventors into the most persistent and 
energetic efforts. But. when we compare the benefit to the 



^1 

inventor with the benefit to the pubhc at large, the former 
is seen to be but a minute percentage of the latter, even dur- 
ing the lifetime of the patent, while after its expiration the en- 
tire invention passes to the public. For instance, previous 
to S. G. Cornell's improvement in making lead pipe, patented 
in 1847, the cost of lead pipe was one and one-half cents per 
pound over and above the cost of the pig-lead ; but this in- 
vention reduced the cost of manufacture two-thirds, and 
since then the price of the pipe has been but half a cent a 
pound more than that of the pig. In 1861 eighteen millions 
of pounds of lead pipe were used in the United States, and 
the saving to the public by this invention was, in that year, 
$180,000. The inventor received from it $14,000. There is 
now in common use a little staple for fastening the rods to 
the slats of Venetian blinds, which was patented seventeen 
years ago. It has corrugated shanks to hold in the wood 
without clinching, so that it stays in the wood much longer 
than the older kind, and requires so much less metal in its 
manufacture that in five years' trade in this country alone 
five hundred tons of iron wire were saved in their fabrication. 
Seventy-five tons of these little staples are used in the 
United States every year. This invention saves the public 
one hundred thousand dollars every year, and the twenty 
thousand dollars that Byron Boardman, the inventor, re- 
ceived for it, were not by any means too much. Base-burning 
stoves are well known to all, and the results of a single 
patent among many relating to them is worthy of note. 
From 170,000 to 200,000 of this class of stoves, made accord- 
ing to S. B. Saxton's patent of 1859, were put into use, and 
their superior utility, as compared with previous base-burn- 
ers, was shown to be at least a dollar and a half each — a 
moderate estimate, giving a total of about $275,000; during 
the same period the inventor received a profit of just $22,- 
394 19. In other words, while the inventor was making less 
than one dollar from his invention, the community was. 
making twelve. About the same ratio is shown by B. F. Stur- 
tevant's patent, also of 1859, fo^ ^ veneer for shoe-pegs. It 
had previously been impossible to form a veneer from which. 



23 



shoe-pegs could be cut so uniform in size as to be used in a 
pegging-machine. In the course of fourteen years this im- 
provement secured a saving in the manufacture of boots and 
shoes of not less than three millions of dollars. The inven- 
tor, who employed the machine in his business of making 
" ribbon peg-wood," netted a profit of two hundred and 
thirty-two thousand dollars from its use. Henry W. Put- 
nam's wire fastening for bottle-stoppers, patented in 1864, 
was a slight and simple thing sold for a dollar and a half a 
gross, or a trifle more than a cent apiece. But the labor it 
saved in the t^^ing of corks in soda-water bottles alone 
amounted to nine millions of dollars in nine years, estimating 
the labor at one dollar and twenty-five cents per day. The 
inventor made twenty thousand dollars from it in the same 
time. That is to say, while the inventor was making one 
dollar from the patent, the public was making four hundred 
and fifty dollars from the invention. 

Twenty years ago all cotton bales were bound with 
ropes, and, as a consequence, in case of fire, the ropes burnt 
off, the bales burst, and the light masses caught like tinder. 
It was next to impossible to extinguish a fire in a cotton 
warehouse or on a vessel laden with cotton. During the 
past few years nearl}' the entire crop has been bound with 
iron, the bands being held by patent ties for holding the 
ends together. This not only keeps the bales compact and 
hard, so that they can burn but slowly, butt also materially 
diminishes their bulk for shipping. This adds one dollar to 
the value of every bale of cotton, equal to a gain to the com- 
munity of four millions of dollars annuall}'. Among several 
of these simple but valuable bale-ties is that with the open 
slot, patented so long ago as 1858 by Frederick Cook, which, 
up to the year 1871, was used upon one million five hundred 
thousand bales, showing the value of this invention to the 
public, up to that date, to have been a million and a half of 
dollars. Cook received four thousand seven hundred and 
ninety-five dollars from his patent. In 1859 Richard H. 
Stewart patented a process of clarifying cane-juice for the 
manufacture of sugar, treating it with sulphurous gas. 



24 

Sugar purified by this method was increased in value one 
half-cent per pound. The war hindered the introduction of 
the improvement, but since 1867 it would be difficult to find 
a planter who has not adopted it. In 1860 the sugar crop 
of Louisiana was five hundred thousand hogsheads. In 1867 
it was onl}^ five thousand. In 1872 it had reached eighty 
thousand. If we take this figure as the average of the past 
five years, the invention has been worth two millions of 
dollars to the people of the United States during that 
period. Stewart received, from the fourteen years of his 
original patent, forty -four thousand three hundred and fifty 
dollars ; or, in other words, he made from his patent in four- 
teen years not quite as much as the country made from it in 
six weel^s. When the sugar production of Louisiana shall 
have reached its former extent, this improvement will add 
two millions and a half of dollars annually to the wealth 
produced by that State. 

Few or none of us have forgotten the time when it was im- 
possible to lemove the chimney of a kerosene lamp while 
hot, and the personal loss of money, time, and patience inevi- 
tably experienced from fractured chimne3^s. About sixteen 
years ago Charles M. Cahoon labored for months, made his 
own tools, borrowed money of friends to get along with, 
broke down his health, and for two months was in a darken- 
ed room under the doctor's care, and finally nearly lost his 
evesight from studying the lamp-flame under various con- 
ditions, and finally, producing an improved burner in which 
the chimnc}^ could be taken off while hot, secured his patent 
in February, 1861. Infringers assailed and he defended his 
rights, for which he had worked so long. Judge Clifford 
sustained them in the U. S. Circuit Court. At last the 
infringers agreed to pay him. How much ? Just one-half of 
a cent royalty on each burner Now, what was the value of 
this invention ? The average life of a kerosene lamp-burner 
is about three years, and the improvement was shown to 
save the breakage of at least eight chimneys a year, or 
twenty-four chimneys for every burner sold. The whole- 
sale price of lamp-chimneys is about six cents. Therefore, 



2D 

while the invention \ielded the public nearly a dollar and a 
half, the patent yielded the patentee a half of a cent. But 
this improvement is an apt illustration of the value, both to 
the public and to the inventor, of what, at a superficial view, 
appear as little things. Up to January last about ten 
millions of these burners had been sold, and the aggregate 
saving to the community was fourteen million four hundred 
thousand dollars. And this was only the money saving ; 
there Avas much gain in avoidance of accident and immunit}' 
from burning the fingers. The inventor received in roA^al- 
ties sixty thousand dollars. Of late years most housekeej)- 
ers have become familiar with " alkalies" put up in packages 
for domestic soap-making. Before 1865 it was found 
impossible to put up caustic alkalies for market in packages. 
Wood would swell and soften, and the material leak out and 
destroy everything with which it came in contact. The 
alkali would " eat up " tin and solder. But George Thomp- 
son patented a plan of putting it up in iron — a little thing to 
do, but great in its results ; for one can of alkali put up in 
this manner, and costing twenty cents, with five pounds of 
common "soap grease," will make ten pounds of hard soap 
at an expense of four cents a pound, but of equal quality 
with that retailed at ten cents. Upwards of twenty millions 
of cases of caustic alkali put up in this manner were sold 
during the term of the original patent, equal to the produc- 
tion of two hundred million pounds of soap. The six cents 
a pound saved to the public on this quantity make a total 
saving of twelve millions of dollars to the public. During 
the same period Thompson received from his British patent 
$2,404, and from his American one $2,000 more. It should 
be mentioned, however, that in this case large profits were 
made by the assignees, of which I have no data ; but although 
such would add to the amount received by the owners of 
the patent, it could not in the least detract from the actual 
saving that inuied to the public. 

A like instance is found in the tin can patented by John 
W. Masury in 1859. Formerly, when a tin can was soldered 
up, it was a difficult matter to open it. Masury hit upon the 



idea of making a portion of the cover of very thin metal^ 
which could be readily cut through .with a knife. Ten mil- 
hons of these cans are made yearly. The Borden Condensed 
Milk Company use ten thousand each and every working day 
in the year. The invention is largely used in the paint trade,, 
as it enables paints to be put up in liquid form, ready for use,, 
thereby saving the painters time and trouble in mixing paint. 
The United States Circuit Court decided the value of this 
improvement to be not less than three cents for each pound- 
can ; but the inventor granted licenses under the patent for a 
royalty of one-quarter of a cent per pound-can. That is to 
say, for every twelve cents the public gained from the inven_. 
tion, the inventor was content to gain one cent. But this is 
not all. The patent law is no respecter of persons. It says 
to one man, Invent a good thing, and make money from the 
patent on it ; and when this is done, it says to every one. In- 
vent a still better thing, and make money out of the patent 
on that. So it has been in the present instance. Mr, 
Masury's can was a great benefit to the community, and 
thus it became a source of profit to him. The sight of such 
success made others emulous, and has thus led them to pro- 
duce other patent cans which are still better, and conse- 
quently of even greater benefit to the public. One of the 
most beneficent effects of the patent law is, after it has caused 
a great invention to be made, it does not stop there, but 
leads to the production of many improvements upon it, the 
scope and value of the original invention being thus con- 
tinually enlarged. It was so in a remarkable degree with 
the sewing-machine ; for this great invention owes nine-tenths 
of its usefulness to scores of supplementary inventions that 
would never have been made if the patent laws had ceased 
with the fabrication of the first machines. Many interesting 
illustrations of this could be given, but I have time to men- 
tion but a few. Among these is the tuck-creaser, a simple 
device, patented fifteen years ago by Henry W. Fuller ; and 
to show the widespread usefulness of such adjunctive im- 
provements, I will mention this somewhat in detail. The in- 
vention consisted in creasing or making the cloth in lines 



'27 



parallel with the line of sewing simultaneously with the 
operation of the needle, so that the making of one seam pro- 
vided a guide, perfectly parallel with it, either for folding the 
fabric or for making the next seam. During the life of the 
patent fifty thousand of these creasers went into use in 
manufacturing establishments alone. The creasers were 
found on an average to last a year, or, to keep on the safe 
side^ two hundred days of actual use. Each creaser would 
do three hundred yards of tucking per day, and this quantity 
was often doubled. A fair day's work without the creaser 
was one hundred yards ; making the entire work done b}^ one 
creaser in a year sixt}^ thousand yards, worth three cents 
per yard, or a total of eighteen hundred dollars. The cost 
of the labor, including use of the sewing-machine in which it 
was used, did not exceed four hundred dollars, leaving a net 
profit of fourteen hundred dollars. But as one-third of this 
amount would be obtained by the same expense of labor, we 
must deduct this proportion, leaving a net profit from each 
creaser of $933T(fV) ^i^d showing that in manufacturing 
establishments alone in the short period of fourteen years 
there was a saving of human labor — a saving in the work of 
tired fingers and weary eyes — of forty-six million, six 
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But this was not all. 
One million, two hundred of the creasers were sold to 
families during the same time, and whatever economy re- 
sulted from this greater number must be added to the public 
benefit conferred by the invention. While the cost of 
materials, etc., remained the same, this invention reduced 
the price of the finished article from four cents a yard to 
two cents. You ask me how much the patentee made 
from it ; I have never learned. He should have made a 
great deal in return for so much given to the world. 
And there was the " ruffle," patented in the same year 
by George B. Arnold, and known in the market as the 
" magic ruffle." This was a new article, and the patentee 
devised a new way of producing it. His invention 
shortened the labor of making such articles twenty-fold, and 
provided a ruffle more uniform and better in quality than 



28 



had previously been made by hand. In its manufacture 
only three operators were required to do the work of fifty ; 
so that, with twenty dollars' worth of material, ruffles could 
be made ready for market, at a cost of twenty-three dollars, 
that otherwise would cost sevent3\ These inventions were 
worth to the public two millions of dollars a year. The 
patents during fourteen ye^irs brought in to the owners $49- 
Q/^tVtj ^s proved from their accounts, to which must be 
added fifteen thousand dollars received from their foreign 
patents. 

The gimlet-pointed screw invented by Thomas J. Sloan 
has made the old variety as obsolete as the hammers of the 
neolithic age. It is impossible to estimate the saving 
of labor ensured by this slight change from the common 
Avood-screw; for the necessity of first boring a gimlet- 
hole for the screw, and then tapping in the screw with 
the hammer before the driver could be applied, has been 
by it entirely done awa}" with. This inventor secured a 
number of patents for machinery for making the screws, 
and the value of these adjunctive patents is illustrated 
b}' one of them, granted in 1851. This particular appa- 
ratus was simply for taking off the slight burr left 
b}^ the saw used in cutting the nick or groove in the 
head of the screw. The production of wood screws at that 
date was ten thousand gross per day. Two hundred and 
eight3^-eight of these machines were in use in the works of 
the Eagle Screw Company in Providence, R. I., and in four- 
teen years— the term of patents at that time — the invention 
effected a saving of ninetj'-seven thousand dollars. The 
double hand-stamps for cancelling stamps and post-marking 
letters by the same stroke of one hand, patented sixteen 
3'ears ago, saved the Government in 1866 the salaries of two 
hundred and fifty -four clerks at from $700 to $900 each, 
or more than two hundred thousand dollars per annum. A 
slight modification in the manner of joining wrought and 
cast iron in the manufacture of railings, patented the same 
year, saved one-fourth of the usual expense of repairs, and 
during the term of the patent saved seventy thousand dol- 



t?9 



lars to the public by its comparative freedom from corrosion 
and breakage. The subject-matter of Aiken and Felthousen's 
patent of twenty-four years ago was the first machine to sew 
tubular goods, such as shirt-sleeves, boot-legs, etc., and in 
1865 it was estimated that fifty thousand sewing-machines,, 
embracing one or the other of the features of this improve- 
ment, were in use. No other sewing-machine Avould do the 
work. One of these machines would save the labor of eight 
hands, and the invention added ten dollars to the value of 
any machine to which it was applied. The curved rest 
which formed one element of the invention was stated by 
sworn experts to save the community fifty thousand dollars 
a year in the manufacture of boots alone. But let me turn 
again to patents the results of which have reached all over 
the world. We can all recall the time, not many years ago, 
w^hen metallic or fixed ammunition was used in fire-arms to 
only a limited extent; whereas not only for army but for ail 
other fire-arms it is now universally used. It was impossible 
to manufacture such cartridges, either of good quality or 
cheap enough to permit their use, until Ethan Allen's patent 
of i860 disclosed a method w^hich produced a revolution in 
fire-arms throughout the civilized world. I quote as follows 
from a sworn statement of the utility of this invention and 
the money saved to the public by its use up to the year 
1871 : "At least six hundred million cartridges have been 
made on the Allen machine ; on these the cost of labor for 
heading has been about thirty thousand dollars. Had it been 
possible to do all this by the spinning process previously in 
use, the cost would have been at least one hundred 
thousand dollars, and at least ten per cent, of the number 
would have been spoiled by the spinning. The average 
value of these shells of all sizes during the lifetime of the 
patent has been four dollars per thousand ; the loss by spin- 
ning would have been two hundred and forty thousand dol- 
lars." But this is not all. Of the remaining ninety per cent. 
fifteen per cent, would have burst in firing — so great a per- 
centage as to make the adoption of metallic cartridges 
impossible until this drawback was removed." And how 



30 



much did Allen receive during the term of fourteen years ? 
He made, in royalties and from the sale of a machine, thir- 
teen thousand one hundred dollars. He also made a manu- 
facturer's profit of fort}^ cents a thousand on sixty-seven 
millions of the cartridges sold, not to the Government, but to 
the general trade, which was little enough in all conscience 
when we consider the importance of the invention. 

Perhaps a greater benefit was conferred upon the country 
and upon mankind through the patents upon which the 
manufacture of American Brussels and pile carpeting has 
been founded. Erastus Bigelow secured his first patent in 
1837, and subsequently obtained many others, that of 1847 
embracing the features that made the machine an absolute 
success in weaving carpet by the power loom. This inven- 
tion created a new branch of industry in this country, and 
its effect was to reduce the wholesale prices of carpets, dur- 
ing the nine years from 1852 to 1861, from $2 25 to $1 80 for 
Wilton per yard; of Brussels, from $1 33 to $1 20; of 
tapestry velvet, from $211 to $1 25, and of tapestry 
Brussels from $1 42 to 82^ cents. The saving to the 
public up to March 20, 1861, was, in round numbers, 
one million three hundred thousand dollars. Bigelow 
had made, up to the year 1861, $136,912 74 from these 
inventions — a tenth part of the amount saved to the public 
during the same time. 

WHAT PATENTS HAVE DONE FOR AGRICULTURE. 

There can be no improvement in any industry which 
does not benefit the agriculturist; for he buys the products 
of all manufacturing arts, while he sells those that result 
from tillage or the keeping of flocks and herds. With im- 
provements such as we have just considered, the farmer 
gains, because the articles he purchases are reduced in price ; 
but there are other inventions which redound more directly 
to his advantage, because they enable him to produce, at 
a smaller cost to himself, what he has to sell. This class, 
of improvemsnts embraces all agricultural machinery; and 
th3 influence ot patent laws in bringing into existence the 



31 



means that have revoUitionized husbandry in all its branches 
within less than fifty years is to the full as apparent as in 
every other class of invention. I need not refer to the 
history of Eli Whitney's cotton-i^in or Jethro Wood's iron 
plough to show that it was the promise held out by the 
patent laws that led these men, through manifold trials, 
the one to open the way of this country to supremacy in 
the growth of the staple fibre of the world, the other t(^ 
realize in sober fact the fairy tale of Scandinavian mythology, 
which told how a metal share added tenfold to the pro- 
duce of the earth. But in agriculture, as in every other art, 
advancement has been due not more to the celebrated inven- 
tions than to multitudes of smaller ones that, each in its 
place, have saved time, labor, or the necessity of skill ; and 
the aggregate results of these are astounding. The citation 
of a few examples will show the correctness of my remark 
that agriculture owes more than any other industry to 
the fostering spirit of the patent laws. And as the yield of 
the harvest begins with the turning of the furrow, perhaps 
the steel plough is the best illustration I can use in this connec- 
tion. It was patented in 1864 by Francis F. Smith; and as 
the experience of this inventor is a fair type of that of inven- 
tors generally, I may speak of it at some length to illustrate 
the fact that no man would be justified, in view of his own 
interests, in devoting himself to producing new and useful 
improvements, if there were no patent laws to reward him 
for so doing. 

Smith commenced business in Ohio, thirty-three 3'ears 
ago, as a blacksmith, and started his own shop in 1843. 
In 1854 he removed to Indiana for the special purpose of 
making ploughs. Here he had frequent occasion to repair 
ploughs, and also carefully studied their operation in the 
field. He sought to make improvements as early as 1850, 
and made two steel ploughs of sheet steel, by hand, in 1856. 
At this time his business was worth eight dollars per day. 
He left this and his shop, and worked for a dollar and a half 
per day in a plough factory in Momence, Illinois, to master 
the practice of plough-making, and stayed there a year. In 



32 



1 859 he made numerous experiments in tempering sheet- 
steel ploughs, but could not save more than one in three. 
Momence is on the Kankakee River. On the north the soil is 
free from sand, on the south sharply sandy and gritty ; on the 
north side a plough would last six to eight years, but on the 
south a hole would often be cut through the share in plough- 
ing twenty -five acres, and frequently the point and rear end 
of the land side would be cut away. In 1859 he was laid up 
by sickness, and learned by reading that steel could be cast 
to shape, but could get no satisfaction by enquiry until 
brought, by correspondence, into relations with the Collins 
Steel Company of Connecticut. He went to Collinsville, 
and left his affairs in the hands of employees at a loss of one 
thousand dollars during the trip. The company required 
that he should give up his business, attend to the making of 
the cast-steel ploughs, and assign one-half of the patents 
secured. He moved to Collinsville in autumn of i860. He 
sold his shop, stock, and household goods at a loss of eleven 
hundred dollars, and the expenses of moving and of the 
former trip were six hundred more. 

The first cast-steel plough was made and tried at Collins- 
ville in July, i860. The first lot, costing about fifteen dol- 
lars each, and aggregating a cost of $22,500, was practically 
a dead loss ; they were sent out untempered, and proved 
too soft for use, and could not be tempered when the defect 
was discovered, because " a ledge had been cast on the 
mould-board which would not permit tempering." Smith 
" gave all his time, energies, and thought to the develop- 
ment of this plough " up to the seventeenth day of April,, 
1874. The number made and sold by the Collins Company 
was eighty thousand five hundred and sixty-nine. Smith, 
up to January i, 1874, over and above money expended, 
but without allowing anything for his labor during these 
years, received about $55,000. The Collins Company in- 
vested not less than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
in the manufacture and introduction of these ploughs ; and 
the ploughs could not have been made at a price low 
enough to come within the reach of the farmer, neither could 



33 

they have been introduced when made, without this large 
capital to pave the way. Cast-iron ploughs are too soft to 
wear well in sand and grit ; they will not scour in soft 
prairie or bottom lands. Ploughs made of sheet steel had been 
tried and been practically abandoned. Sheet-steel ploughs 
are of flat plates ; they do not have greatest thickness at 
points of greatest wear ; the plates tend to constantly renew 
their former flat form. The parts cannot be made uniform, 
cannot be readily duplicated or repaired, and will not admit 
of high temper and hardness; for tempering and hardening 
warps and twists or cracks and spoils the sheet. All these 
defects are obviated in the cast-steel plough. The worth to 
the farmer in increased durability, aside from scouring, esti- 
mated by sworn experts at five dollars per plough, over and 
above common ploughs, after making allowance for differ- 
ence in the prices at which they were sold — 80,500 ploughs, 
with an increased value of five dollars each — is upwards of 
four hundred thousand dollars gained by the farmers of the 
West, while the inventor made less than one-seventh of this 
amount. It is true that the manufacturers made their 
profits in addition to this, but their capital was necessary to 
the development and introduction of the invention ; and, as 
we have seen, one of the most useful attributes of the patent 
law is that it leads individuals to furnish means to practi- 
cally construct, test, and introduce improvements that 
without such aid would languish and die. The patent laws 
bring the genius of the inventor and the resources of the 
capitalist together, and both, with the aim of enriching 
themselves, enrich in a far greater degree the public. I 
have spoken at some length of the steel plough, because it 
shows how many and serious are the difficulties to be over- 
come in perfecting what at first sight may appear a simple 
invention — difficulties so great that the inventor would have 
been insane to have attempted to overcome them, had not 
the patent laws held out the certainty of profit in the event 
of success. Had there been no patent laws, the idea of a 
steel plough would have been but a myth. As it was, the 
inventor was rewarded by a competence for creating an 



34 



implement destined to add millions of dollars to the wealth 
of the country. 

But a greater than the steel plough was McCormick's 
reaper ; for his reel and divider made grain-harvesting a suc- 
cess. And no man ever showed more thoroughly that his 
efforts were due to the gain to be secured to himself by pa- 
tents. In the extension of these patents it was shown by 
sworn evidence that in those districts of the West where 
reapers were introduced, the increase in the production of 
grain was one hundred per cent. ; for the labor of those 
regions could not harvest by the old methods more than one- 
half of what the soil was capable of yielding. The work of 
sowing is one-half easier than that of reaping ; so that, if all 
was sown that could be, one-half of the crop would have 
had to rot on the ground. On an average each machine cut, 
during each year of its lifetime of ten years, two hundred 
acres, or a total of two thousand acres. Hence it was that 
each machine saved to the user, in labor alone, at least five 
hundred dollars, besides paying its original cost ; and in this 
way, up to 1859, the savmg of labor to the public amounted 
to thirty-six million six hundred thousand dollars. The 
gain to the public in the increase of the grain crop, due to 
the invention, to the same date, was one hundred millions 
of dollars. McCormick's patents were dated 1834, 1845, ^nd 
1847; but up to the year 1859 ^^ had devoted twenty-seven 
years to his improvements. During this time he paid out 
one million, eight hundred and sixty-five thousand, two 
hundred and seventy-eight dollars. His receipts, exclusive 
of bad debts and costs of collection, were $2,527,692, leaving 
him a clear profit of $662,414. . This included both manu- 
facturer's profits and royalties. Was it too much ? I think 
not. This man made half a million for himself from his 
patents in a quarter of a century. His invention yields ten 
millions to the country every year, and it will continue to 
do so as long as seed-time and harvest shall continue to the 
prairies of the West. But the devices that would cut the 
upright hollow stalks of grain were unsatisfactory when ap- 
plied to cutting the more slender and fibrous stems and the 

f 



35 

yielding leaves of grass; and the sickle-bar, playing through 
slots in the guard-fingers closed at both ends, clogged so 
that no successful machine for cutting grass was made before 
Eliakim R. Forbush, in 1849, patented his guard-finger with 
the open slot. This enabled the knives to clean themselves, 
and effectually avoided clogging. This was applied to 
various machines that needed nothing more to fit them for 
cutting grass. The inventor was modest enough to estimate 
the value of this improvement at two dollars for each ma- 
chine, although no machine that would successfully cut fine 
grass had ever been used before. Twelve years ago the 
number of mowing-machines sold in one season was twenty- 
five thousand, or a gain to the farming community from this 
device of fifty thousand dollars annually. Forbush Avas un- 
fortunate, and, while the public was making this, he derived, 
during the original term of his patent, just twenty-five dollars 
and ninety cents per annum. 

After machines had been made to reap, and other ma- 
chines had been made to mow, it still remained to provide a 
machine that would do both. There were numerous at- 
tempts to do this before John H. Manny's patent of 185 1, 
but none had succeeded. Before this two distinct machines 
were required for the two kinds of work, at a cost of from 
$235 to $270, or an average of $250 for the two. Manny 
sold a machine, equally efficient for both kinds of work, for 
$135, saving $115 to the purchase of each of his machines. 
There were made and sold under this patent of 185 i sixty 
thousand machines, saving to the farmers in fourteen years, 
in this matter of first cost alone, six million nine hundred 
thousand dollars. But this is not all. Manny made the 
cutter-bars of his machine so readily adjustable that they 
could be raised or lowered to cut lodged grain, the 
lodged grain being picked up by the bar, cut, and 
saved. The loss from lodging has been frequently estimated 
at several bushels per acre ; but at only half a bushel per 
acre, at eighty cents to the bushel, a machine cutting ten 
acres a da)^ the saving amounts to four dollars a day for 
every day a machine is used. Assuming each machine to be 



36 



used only twelve days each year, the saving amounts to 
forty-eight dollars for each machine per annum. These 
machines, with usual wear and tear, were found to last eight 
years— a shorter time than McCormick's, because they mow- 
ed as well as reaped. Eight times forty-eight dollars is $384, 
and the sixty thousand machines saved in lodged grain 
alone $23,040,000. Add to this the saving in first cost of 
machines, and Manny's inventions saved to the agricultural 
community in fourteen years within a fraction of thirty 
millions of dollars. Manny secured no less than thirteen 
patents, from which he made altogether a trifle more than 
$283,000, including his profits as a manufacturer, or less than 
one per cent, of what the farmers had gained from them 
during the same time. But Manny's profits, like those of 
every other inventor, ceased when his patents expired. 
But the public, with these, as with all other inventions, has 
their benefits for all time ; and the same rule holds good 
for small inventions. In 1861 Nathan Brand patented a 
machine for making hoes by rolling instead of forging the 
plates. This reduced the cost from twelve to nine dollars a 
dozen ; and there are one hundred thousand dozen hoes 
made and sold annually in the United States. Brand made 
from it, over and above the expense of his experiments, 
three thousand six hundred dollars. 

I had intended to include in this review the various 
improvements in horse-rakes, seeding-machines, cultivators, 
etc., which have added so much to the resources of the 
agriculturist, and each and all of which prove and illustrate 
the truth that the patent laws which evoked them have, 
more than to any other one class of community, been of in- 
calculable benefit to farmers ; but the length this address has 
already reached forbids. It requires, however, but little 
reflection to perceive that if farmers should be deiprived of 
all the aids that the patent laws have induced inventors to- 
provide, their agriculture would be relegated to the old- 
fashioned scythe and cradle, the bull-plough, the hand-rake,, 
and the hoe wrought from bar-iron in the village black- 
smith's shop. And of all classes, farm er§ can least afford tO' 



37 



dispense with the system that has nourished and roused 
to energy and practical effect the inventive genius ot" our 
people. Themselves with fortunes based upon mental not 
less than physical labor, they cannot deny to the inventor 
the recognition of the grand old maxim of Holy Writ that 
" the laborer is worthy of his hire." 



